Following the release last week of a report by Food Democracy Now! and The Detox Project on alarming levels of glyphosate contamination found in popular American foods, Anresco Laboratories (San Francisco) has released a statement on the testing methods it is using for what it calls the ”new era of glyphosate testing in food”.
Source: http://anresco.com/statement-new-era-glyphosate-testing-food/
Anresco Laboratories Statement
Anresco Laboratories, San Francisco, is ISO 17025-accredited, FDA-registered, and has a proven track record of accurate results for over 70 years.
A main focus of our company is import testing related to the FDA’s Detention Without Physical Examination Program (DWPE).
Anresco uses several Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) methods to test for Glyphosate/AMPA, as no single method works for all food matrices. Many of the products we test are finished and processed goods, each inherently different from the rest. Accommodations need to be made to account for these differences and we continually modify and validate our processes for each product accordingly.
Based on the chemistry of Glyphosate and AMPA, most methods of extraction involve water or a combination of water plus a water-soluble organic. The key is to understand the principles behind the chemistry and then to apply it to each product in order to extract, clean and analyze the sample in a way that obtains a proper recovery. We have spent countless hours researching, performing and refining methods to generate results that meet our criteria for reportability.
We stand behind our results as we are confident in our findings and know they will hold up under scrutiny. The stated methods on our Certificates of Analysis are used to guide our analytical procedures. The validated modifications we make are referenced from the methods listed below and others:
❯ Simultaneous LC-MS/MS Analysis of Glyphosate, Glufosinate, and Their Metabolic Products in Beer, Barley Tea, and Their Ingredients. Biosci, Biotechnology, Biochem 77 (11), 2218-2221, 2013
❯ EU Reference Laboratories – Quick Method for the Analysis of Residues of numerous Highly Polar Pesticides in Food Commodities involving Simultaneous Extraction with Methanol and Determination via LC-MS/MS (QuPPe-AO-Method) Version 2
❯ EU Reference Laboratories – Quick Method for the Analysis of Residues of numerous Highly Polar Pesticides in Foods of Plant Origin involving Simultaneous Extraction with Methanol and LC-MS/MS Determination (QuPPe-Method), Version 9.1 May 2016
❯ US FDA Laboratory Information Bulletin (LIB) 4595 – Direct Determination Glyphosate, Glufosinate, and AMPA in milk by Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry
❯ Determination of Glyphosate, its Degradation Product Aminomethylphosphonic Acid, and Glufosinate, in Water by Isotope Dilution and Online Solid-Phase Extraction and Liquid Chromatography/Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Techniques and Methods 5–A10, U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey.